Noteworthy News Articles on Mental Health Topics, February 2000
Divorce Depresses Boys More Than Girls
Karen S. Peterson, USA Today- 02/07/2000
Divorce more than doubles the risk for adjustment problems in children, says
government-sponsored research. But if the custodial parent, usually the
mother, continues to do a good job of parenting, the risk of emotional and behavioral
problems is reduced for both boys and girls, says an ongoing, 10-year study funded by the
National Institute of Mental Health. The alarming news: Boys in divorced families are at
higher risk for depression than those in intact families, even if the post-divorce
situation is ideal. The report speculates that "perhaps even optimal post-divorce
circumstances are not sufficient to compensate for the sadness experienced by boys because
of the departure of their father from the home." Having "the father leave the
home may be more traumatic for boys than for girls," says the study by a team at Iowa
State University in Ames.
The good news, says lead researcher Ronald Simons, is the findings show
that the majority of the children of divorce do just fine. "What is essential for
kids is that they be parented well," he says. "If Mom and Dad continue to
persevere in their parenting, are warm and supportive, monitor the kids and are consistent
in discipline, the risk for conduct (behavior) problems is no greater than in two-parent
families." That is a more optimistic view than many professionals in his field hold,
Simons says. The children of divorce are at risk for adjustment problems because their
parents often do just the opposite, the research shows. They continue hostile exchanges in
front of the kids. And they are less apt than parents in intact families to continue
quality parenting: One parent is gone, there is often financial strain, and the custodial
mother may become depressed herself. The report notes that there may be much conflict in
intact families, but it does not harm the kids if it doesn't affect the quality of
parenting. Such conflict might not be as threatening to kids if there is no suggestion of
divorce, he speculates. The research finds that pre-divorce conflict increases the chance
of depression in boys, while post-divorce conflict increases a girl's risk of behavior
problems, such as acting out. The report speculates that the threat of having Dad leave is
more stressful for boys than girls, while acting out may be one way for a girl to express
her anxiety over continued, post-divorce quarreling. The continued involvement of
Dad helps reduce the likelihood of behavior problems with boys.
The study involved 534 families: 328 two-parent and 206 divorced
households headed by mothers. The average age of the children was 14. Findings are
reported in the Journal of Marriage and the Family, published by the National Council on
Family Relations, a professional association. Robert Milardo, editor of the journal, says
some children are affected "horribly" by divorce. But looking at the entire
literature on divorce now, "the effects for many do not seem very long term or
profound."
Behind a Murder Suspect's Cool Facade, Emotional Havoc
David Barstow, New York Times- 2/12/2000
All week long, a small, close-knit group of students at Columbia University has puzzled
over the paradox of Thomas G. Nelford Jr. What inner torment could have possessed a bright
young man they knew as a pacifist, artist and all-around mellow California dude to
suddenly slash the throat of a woman he had just taken home for Christmas? If Mr. Nelford
had not subsequently threw himself in front of a subway train, dying instantly, his
friends said, they would have found it impossible to even imagine that he had killed
Kathleen A. Roskot, a 19-year-old sophomore and star lacrosse player at Columbia. "We
need to understand, but we don't." the Rev. George Sullivan told nearly 800 friends
and relatives yesterday at Mr. Nelford's funeral Mass in Oxnard, Calif. "Our souls
cry out: Why?" Deepening the mystery is the fact that the day before their deaths
last weekend, there were no outward signs of strain between the two, some friends said.
They shared sandwiches Friday afternoon, did stomach crunches together and discussed going
to see the movie "Angela's Ashes." Upon returning to her dormitory after
midnight, Ms. Roskot mentioned to friends that the couple planned to stay in for the rest
of the night. They were holding hands. After she failed to show up for lacrosse practice
last Saturday, her room was checked and her nude body was discovered. Mr. Nelford, 23,
killed himself soon after.
While the police continue to investigate, some of Ms. Roskot's friends
have suggested that she was trying to end the relationship. Such a rejection would have
been devastating. Mr. Nelford's father, a lawyer, said in a series of emotional interviews
this week from Reno, Nevada. Thom Nelford said this son's seeming unflappable cool hid an
emotional fragility, the result of endless discord between his parents. It is unclear what
role, if any, this family strife played in the two deaths. But Mr. Nelford said he was
convinced that it had made his son unstable. "He was not allowed to love his
father," he said. Divorced in 1985, the Nelfords have grown so estranged that when
Carolyn Nelford, Tom Jr.'s mother, called last week to let her ex-husband know about their
son's death, he hung up on her before she could tell him the news, he acknowledged.
Carolyn Nelford, a paralegal in Oxnard, declined to comment. But according to divorce
records, she fought to reduce her ex-husband's visitation rights in 1987, alleging that he
had mistreated their son and daughter. Accused of swearing at the children, shaking them
when he was angry and belittling 9-year-old Tommy for being overweight, Mr. Nelford
responded in court papers that the allegations were overblown. But a judge ordered him to
undergo psychotherapy, and no more overnight visits were permitted. Soon after, Mr.
Nelford said, he suffered an emotional breakdown. He did not work for months, stopped
visiting his children and fell greatly behind on child support.
There are signs that Tom Nelford had managed to overcome his parents'
messy divorce. He thrived in school. Shedding a chubby build, he became one of the best
high school wrestlers in Southern California. At Rio Mesa High School in Ventura County,
he had a 3.5 grade point average, his own rock band and plenty of friends. He entered
Columbia University in 1995. His major was visual arts, and his freshman year seemed to go
well enough. The Columbia sports media guide called him "one of the top"
freshmen wrestlers in the Ivy League, and he finished the season with a respectable 17
wins and 13 losses. He earned the nickname Rugged Tom. With little money for winter
clothes, he could be seen trudging through snow in sandals, jeans and a T-shirt as if he
were strolling through warm California beach sand. Mr. Nelford's sophomore wrestling
season was up and down and he did not wrestle during his junior year, but he did find
modest success in art and music. He formed a band called Couchcase and recorded a few
songs featuring his frenetic guitar playing and scruffy voice. He also had several
cartoons published in the student newspaper, The Columbia Spectator. His cartooning
revealed a mordant, Mad magazine sense of humor about many subjects--designer drugs,
internet sex, infomercials. In one cartoon, a man and woman trade a series of insults and
ugly confessions, culminating with the man saying "the voices told me to kill you in
your sleep." The woman then screams, "April Fool's!" The man replies,
"That's today?" Mr. Nelford spent more and more time on his art at the expense
of academics. He dropped out of college in the spring of 1998 and returned to California.
His mother sent him to counseling, but he expressed ambivalence about re-enrolling at
Columbia. He told friends that he wanted to wander the country like Jack Kerouac, one of
his literary heroes. He turned up one day at his father's door in Reno, their first
meeting in years. Mr. Nelford described his son at that time as "emotionally
crippled" yet yearning for a connection. They talked and cried together at a coffee
shop. "The father-son relationship was so destroyed," Mr. Nelford said. "We
wanted to get back together."
In early 1999, Tom Nelford, then 22, returned to New York City with no
specific plan. Back in California, his mother was worried sick. She would go weeks without
hearing from him. "She prayed for that child every minute of every hour of every
day," said her friend Nancy Reddish of Salt Lake City. Back on the fringes of
Columbia, Mr. Nelford floated along. He fell in with a small group of students, and spent
his summer days in-line skating, writing songs, smoking marijuana and playing his guitar
on the roof of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house where he often slept in an oversized
storage closet. Tom Nelford lived off the generosity of his friends and sometimes bartered
his art. Once he used coat hangers to make a sculpture for a friend as thanks for allowing
him to crash on her living room couch. Sometimes he sang for his supper. "he thought
that if he was working, he wouldn't have time for drawing and painting." said one of
his friends, Paul Aranda. "A workplace environment was surreal to him." He wore
his hair long and scraggly, and gave little thought to his ratty clothes. "He was one
of those guys it was hard not to want to take care of," said Elizabeth Buckey, 21,
another friend. "He was so down on his luck." Yet Mr. Nelford affected an
outward calm. His primary response to everyday setbacks was a beatific "Dude, it's
cool." His outlook seemed neatly summarized in one of his songs: "Things could
be better, but I feel content. Because what I'm after. I represent." He did not
engage in the usual chitchat. Conversations with Tom Nelford tended to be about the major
questions of life--with one exception. He did not discuss his family.
In the fall, Mr. Nelford underwent an abrupt transformation as he began
to date Kathleen Roskot, the first serious girlfriend his Columbia friends had ever seen
him with. He cleaned himself up, got a crew cut and took a job selling jeans. Ms. Roskot
was full of drive and discipline, the two-time captain of her high school lacrosse team on
Long Island. Some of Mr. Nelford's more bohemian friends did not understand the
attraction. She seemed preppy, standoffish. Once, when Mr. Nelford introduced her to a
friend whose bedroom walls were plastered with photographs of marijuana buds, it was clear
that she wanted to get out of the room fast. "She was, 'go school, go life, go
career,'" Ms. Buckey said. "She would want to be changing him." But the two
had things in common--athletics, contemplative natures and a passion for the music and
literature of the 1960s. Ms. Roskot decorated her room with posters of Jimi Hendrix and
Janis Joplin. She stuck up favorite Kerouac quotes. Before long, Mr. Nelford was spending
many of his nights in her suite on the fifth floor of Ruggles Hall. Romeo Petretich, who
was dating one of Ms. Roskot's suite mates, befriended Mr. Nelford. The two couples spent
a lot of time together in the suite. Never once, he said, did Mr. Nelford act aggressively
toward Ms. Roskot. Like many of their friends, he said he could not help wondering if the
killer was still at large.
According to Mr. Petreitch, Ms. Roskot took Mr. Nelford to her home on
Long Island for Thanksgiving. During the Christmas break, the two drove out West to visit
his parents. His mother, who had spent two long years worried about her son's future, was
thrilled. "My prayers have been answered," she told Ms. Reddish. The two then
traveled to Reno to spend New Year's Eve with Mr. Nelford's father. Thom Nelford said his
son seemed happy, in love, at peace. Weeks later, he received notes of thanks from both of
them. When Carolyn Nelford called her ex-husband last week, she got as far as saying there
was a problem with Tommy when Thom cut her off. "After all this time, now is not the
time to be calling me with problems about the kids," Mr. Nelford said before hanging
up. Ms. Nelford called back. She left word of their son's death with Mr. Nelford's
girlfriend.
'Acceptance Therapy' Can Help
Jane Brody, Ann Arbor News- 2/20/2000
Too often, the very characteristics that initially attracted partners to
one another or the disturbing behaviors that at first were ignored
or considered unimportant eventually become marital sore points.
Couples struggle to get one another to change--to conform to each
other's needs and desires and definition of a more perfect partner.
Even those who seek marital therapy before deciding to divorce
have considerably less than a 50-50 chance of achieving and maintaining
the changes that would make for a more peaceful union. Enter
"acceptance therapy," or as "integrative couples therapy."
This concept, which grew out of a therapist's disillusionment with
traditional techniques, is described and illustrated in a new book,
"Reconcilable Differences" (Guilford Publications, $23.95)
by Dr. Andrew Christensen and the late Dr. Neil S. Jacobson.
The two psychologists offer a slew of tools that couples can use to
reconcile their differences without the help of a therapist.
Of course, for any therapy to succeed in reviving a relationship,
there must be a desire on the part of both partners to make a go of
it. The approach of integrative therapy is that rather
than force change, partners should start by accepting each other's
differences and appreciating their individual sensitivities.
One virtue of the book is its utter realism, its repeated warnings
that one or another tactic may backfire, which are then followed by
new strategies.
The National Institute of Mental Health has been
sufficiently impressed with the early results of integrative couples
therapy to award $3 million for a clinical trial involving about 150
couples. Half the couples will receive traditional therapy
and the other half the integrative approach. The outcome of
the six to nine months of treatment will be measured in terms of couple
satisfaction and stability of the union and the couples will be followed
for two years. The main idea behind acceptance therapy is that
acceptance of another person's traits and behaviors often leads to
compassion. Acceptance is most likely to emerge through
understanding. So the first step they recommend is to analyze
the anatomy of an argument by developing a story about an important
relationship problem that incorporates the perspectives of both partners,
identifies incompatibilities and vulnerabilities and describes how
each person copes and how the problem escalates into conflict.
The go back over the story to see whether it focuses on differences
rather than defects. "When your focus shifts from the offending
actions of each of you to the soft spots that are bruised by these
actions, you may come to a new understanding of each other, one that
cuts angry arguments short and over time brings you closer together,"
the psychologists wrote.
Too often, important thoughts and feelings about
a conflict are left unsaid, either because of a lack of awareness
or a fear of becoming vulnerable by disclosing them.
"Yet," the authors wrote, "it is precisely these revelations
that could alter the tone of the discussion and perhaps elicit empathy
between the two." When partners feel accepted and
understood, they are more likely to change willingly, often making
more changes than requested. Even if no change occurs, acceptance
and compassion are likely to bring a couple closer. One aspect
of acceptance may be the realization that what now drives a person
crazy about a partner is a characteristic that was a source of the
initial attraction. For example, a woman who is timid and conservative
may be drawn to a man who is sociable and spontaneous. But with
time and the arrival of children, the husband's tendency to pursue
social activities that exclude his wife or the take risks the wife
considers dangerous and inconsiderate for a man with a family can
become a serious source of conflict.
Another important feature of acceptance is to realize
that partners are not being deliberately mean. For example,
when a husband failed to tell his wife until the last moment that
he was going hiking for the weekend with his best friend, she became
furious over his inconsiderate behavior. But his intent was
not to hurt his wife. It was his way of avoiding an argument.
To end a vicious cycle of avoidance and hurt, the husband needed to
understand and accept his wife's sensitivity to feeling left out and
her own difficulties in making plans of her own. Keep in mind
that acceptance has its limits. The psychologists state that
some behaviors--like physical and psychological abuse--should never
be accepted.
Freud's Second Thoughts
Jonathan Lear, New York Times Book Review- 2/27/2000
You are trying to get to an exam (meet a friend, deliver a message), but there are
endless corridors (the stairs are blocked, the elevator gets stuck, the room has changed).
We have a dream like this about getting to Freud. In the past decade especially, his
serious readers in English have had an increasingly uncomfortable sense that language
itself is an obstacle. One of the master German stylists of the 20th century, Freud wrote
colloquially; the commonly used translation ("The Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud," edited by James Strachy and published by
Norton) imposes pseudoscientific terminology on his prose. Take a notorious example: Freud
uses the ordinary Besetzung (charge or investment) to say that an idea can become
charged or intense; he is rendered as saying that an idea can become "cathected"
with energy. That language like this - foreign to Freud's German - permeates the standard
English edition of his work is a matter of more than aesthetic significance. The shape of
the psychoanalytic profession was influenced by the choice of the words.
What a delight then, to have a new translation
of "The Interpretation of Dreams," one that strips off the
scientific veneer and gives us a Freud who is fresh and alive and,
seemingly, unobscured. "Seemingly" is the right word. Oxford
University Press's "Interpretation of Dreams," translated
by Joyce Crick and with an introduction and notes by Ritchie Robertson,
is based on "the original text only -- that is, the 1899-1900
edition, the first of eight printed in German in Freud's lifetime.
I suspect that the lovely translation -- and the unlovely editorial
decision flow from the same desire: to cut through the obstacles and
get back to the real Freud. It is as if the translation itself were
enacting a fantasy of analysis: the first edition is the repressed
memory that needs to be recovered.
That first German edition had a print run of 600
copies. It took eight years to sell them. But of all of his works,
"The Interpretation of Dreams" was Freud's favorite, and
he continued to revise it in subsequent editions. Strachey's "Standard
Edition" translates the eighth and last, from 1930. What is marvelous
about "The Standard Edition" is that it tells you the date
of each addition. Thus a reader can see how Freud's dream theory was
built up over the course of three decades of his thinking. The additions
are, for the most part, represented as footnotes -- and they often
represent Freud's own commentary on the original text. Doing without
them is like saying we'll get back to the real Talmud if we eliminate
the marginal comments. Indeed, in my opinion the most important statement
in the whole book occurs in just such a footnote, added relatively
late, at the end of Chapter Six: "[Footnote added 1925] I used
at one time to find it extraordinarily difficult to accustom readers
to the distinction between the manifest content of dreams and the
latent dream thoughts. Again and again arguments and objections would
be brought up based upon some uninterpreted dream in the form in which
it had been retained in the memory, and the need to interpret it would
be ignored. But now that analysts at least have become reconciled
to replacing the manifest dream by the meaning revealed by its interpretation,
many of them have become guilty of falling into another confusion
which they cling to with equal obstinacy. They seek to find the essence
of dreams in their latent content and in so doing they overlook the
distinction between the latent dream-thoughts and the dream-work.
At bottom, dreams are nothing other than a particular form of thinking,
made possible by the conditions of the state of sleep. It is the dream
work which creates that form, and it alone is the essence of dreaming
-- the explanation of its peculiar nature."
In other words, after 25 more years of psychoanalytic
experience, Freud feels the need to point out to his readers that
a dream is not its content -- whether hidden or evident -- but a form
of mental activity. Why should this new, good translation of "The
Interpretation of Dreams" deprive us of this insight? The author
is telling us how to read his book, warning us to avoid certain misinterpretations,
expressing modifications of his own theory. And though we may not
want to follow all of his retrospective advice, it is fascinating
to see what he later thought we needed to know. For example, at the
end of the section on the material and sources of dreams, Freud adds:
"[Footnote added 1914: ] The fact that the meanings of dreams
are arranged in superimposed layers is one of the most delicate, though
also one of the most interesting, problems of dream interpretation.
Anyone who forgets this possibility will easily go astray and be led
into making untenable assertions upon the nature of dreams. Yet it
is still a fact that far too few investigations have been made into
this matter." People who think they have uncovered the meaning
of a dream would do well to reflect on these words.
Freud writes in a conversational style, and the
footnotes add to the sense of an enduring conversation. Most serious
readers have at least one writer they go back to at different stages
of life. Wouldn't it be wonderful if those writers came back to us
too? Freud does just that, for what he wants to say to us later on
is down at the bottom of the page in a footnote - the spatial representation
of the passage of time. And like any really deep conversation, this
one provides hints about how to continue thinking after it's over.
In the text, for instance, Freud talks about how a dream that makes
us feel anxious can nevertheless be the expression of a wish. In fact,
Freud says, the attempt to express a wish is precisely what makes
us feel anxious. For what we wish -- notoriously, -- a forbidden sexual
encounter -- can also be something we reject, and it is this conflict
that causes the anxiety. But then, nineteen years later, Freud adds
this afterthought: "[Footnote added 1919] A second factor, which
is much more important and far-reaching, but which is equally overlooked
by laymen, is the following. No doubt a wish fulfillment must bring
pleasure; but the question then arises 'To whom?' To the person who
has the wish, of course. But, as we know, a dreamer's relation to
his wishes is a quite peculiar one. He repudiates them and censors
them -- he has no liking for them, in short. So that their fulfillment
will give him no pleasure, but just the opposite; and experience shows
that this opposite appears in the form of anxiety, a fact which has
still to be explained. Thus a dreamer in his relation to his dream-wishes
can only be compared to an amalgamation of two separate people who
are linked by some important common element." On the face of
it, that the dreamer dreams the dreams is a tautology. But Freud makes
the truism uncanny. For he points out that our conscious relation
to our dreams is so strange that who (or what) the dreamer is becomes
problematic. I think one can view the entire work of Jacques Lacan
as an attempt to work out the meaning of this footnote.
You should know that there is one addition I was
basically happy to see gone -- a long section on typical meanings
in dreams, so long that it had to be included in the main body of
the text. The irony is that although this section is in jarring contrast
with the overall outlook of the book, it contains the ideas that are
popularly associated with Freud. The section in question, in other
words, provides the popular distortion with its grain of truth. Here
Freud is willing to tell us, for example that a hat typically stands
for male genitals. By contrast, the rest of the book argues that there
can be no typical meanings, because each dreamer uses common images
in thoroughly idiosyncratic ways. Thus there will be layers of meanings
that are absolutely peculiar to the individual dreamer. That is why
one cannot interpret a dream by decoding symbols. Psychoanalysis distinguishes
itself by insisting on the individuality of each person's meanings.
But even with this awful section, I couldn't just say "good riddance."
For a relationship to endure, one must be able to tolerate those inevitable
moments when one thinks one's partner has made a mistake, exercised
bad judgment, shown appalling taste. It adds to my sense of the reality
of my conversation with Freud that I want to tell him to take this
section out. And it adds to my sense of Freud's humanity that this
time I think I understand Freud better than he understood himself.
In the Heart, or in the Head? Three Psychiatrists Explore the
Neurobiology of Love
A Book Review of A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, et al.
Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review, 2/27/2000
What is it that makes a long-legged, lynx-eyed young editrix leave a dinner at midnight
in New Your on an evening when whipping winds take the temperature to 20 below zero to
drag her lean, leather-clad frame to a bar where a man with bad intentions may or may not
appear? It's neurons, willful neurons, which have programmed her body, heart and mind, in
defiance of anything her logic would recommend, to propel her to a place where they can
get the electrochemical fix they call love, which her intellect and her friends would call
folly. Why do smart neurons make such foolish choices: Because, in the refrain of cads
immemorial, it's beyond their control. Three centuries ago, the French physicist Blaise
Pascal wrote that "the heart has reasons that reason cannot comprehend." And for
300 years all that scientists, in common with lust-maddened suitors and bereft jiltees,
could do with that insight was to agree with it, embroider it on sofa cushions and write
it in spidery script on Dear John letters. But after the introduction of Prozac in 1988,
which proved that the brain's emotional chemistry could be swayed more reliably by
serotonin than by Jack Daniels, psychoanalysis and the advice of despairing friends, three
psychiatrists from the University of California, San Francisco, banded together to tackle
the question of whether Pascal was right--in other words, to see if it is true that the
emotions obey different rules from the intellect. The doctors--Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini
and Richard Lannon, all of them male, as it happens--suspected that it is; after all,
everyone from their mothers to Hippocrates said so. But with new neurological and
pharmacological data at their disposal, they decided to double-check. The result of their
research is a book called "A General Theory of Love," in which they declare at
the outset, with some swagger, that they have the answer; "Pascal was correct,
although he could not have known why." As a scientific premise, this lacks gravitas;
indeed, on first airing, their thesis seems to have less in common with the typical
scrupulous, multiauthored report in the New England Journal of Medicine on, say,
permissive hypercapnia, than with the typical whimsical, unanswerable Oxford Union debate
on the topic of, say, "All's Fair in Love and War."
The opening chapter, "The Heart's Castle," prolongs the
playful mood, the doctors talk liltingly of love, meditate on heartbreak, invoke Greek
myth and recite soupy poetry because "the adventure itself demands it." But just
as you begin to imagine them as spoiled New Age sages, forgathered in the courtyard of a
rented Tuscan villa, spinning a modern Symposium as they dip biscotti in vinsanto--they
slug back double espressos and stride through the doors of the villa into a
state-of-the-art love lab. Pascal was right, they explain, because "the neural
systems responsible for emotion and intellect are separate, creating the chasm between
them in human minds and lives." You cannot choose who lure you any more than you can
will yourself to speak pashto or play flamenco guitar, because "the requisite neural
framework for performing these activities does not coalesce on command." Like it or
not, all of us know only how to play the kind of love our brains have already practiced.
In the manner of the best popularizers of science--like Daniel Dennett, author of
"Darwin's Dangerous Idea." or Stephen Pinker, untangler of linguistic
mysteries--the authors break a path that lay readers can safely follow.
Neuroscience confirms what women have long believed: men have reptilian
brains. Before anyone starts feeling insulted: so do women. The reptilian brain is the one
that makes your heart beat and your blood flow, the brain that still lives when somebody
is brain dead, the brain whose death guarantees yours. It is very important, but alone it
will not make you a good dinner guest. Every human also has a neocortex, the showoffy
portion of the brain that allows us to write, speak, scheme and, if we are very lucky, win
a million dollars on a quiz show. A quasi adjunct of the neocortex is the hippocampus,
which stores and facilitates explicit memory: numbers, dates, facts and names. But there
is yet another brain, the limbic brain which lizards lack but all mammals share, which
cuddles between the reptilian brain and the neocortex and is the repository of emotions,
instincts and hormones, and of implicit memories of nurturance, grievance and deep
preference. It is the limbic brain, with its attendant chemicals--serotonin, opiates and
oxytocin--that make mothers rear their young and croon to them rather than deposit them in
a sandbar and slither off. It is the limbic brain that makes children want puppies, and
puppies want children, and allows mammals to form attachment bonds with one another.
Dioima, the "wise woman" friend of Socrates to whom Plato gave star billing in
his "Symposium," explained more than 2,000 years ago that "one part of love
is separated off and receives the name of the whole." Today we can name all the
parts; the neocortex does the thinking, the reptilian brain does the breathing, but love
is definitely limbic.
This schema is known as the triune brain, and although it is somewhat
controversial, as all theories that explain things too neatly tend to be, it is considered
sound science. But the question of how, exactly, the three parts commingle is up for
grabs. In the opinion of Lewis, Amini and Lannon, the tender emotions and impressions of
the limbic system are besieged by the hard facts of the neocortex. In the mind's explicit
memory banks, neurons constantly fire and forge connections. Over time, certain links are
reinforced through repetition. Tis code-writing habit of the brain is so well established
by now that its patterns are imitated by computer search engines and by smart machines
that can diagnose human health conditions and learn from their own mistakes. But the
limbic brain does not diagnose, or self-correct; all it does is feel. To illustrate; if
you read the sentence, " THE CHT MEOWED AND PURRED," your mind will correct CHT,
both because the brain knows CHT is anomalous and because it remembers that it has seen
the word CAT near the words meow and purr thousands of times. The implicit limbic memory
of stroking a cat or having it twine between your ankles is awakened every time you read
the word. By the same token, a woman (call her Lady X) who habitually indulges the memory
of a certain dark and brooding man (call him Man X, whose glance was, to her, electric,
who had crooked teeth, liked a certain kind of food and listened to Josh White) burns
thousands of links to him into her brain. Long after he's gone, the neurons in her
neocortex will forge a new connection every time she sees crooked teeth, hears
"Careless Love" or smells Indian food--and these neocortical facts will rain
down on her limbic system, irrigating the trench of memory where Man X resides. Anyone she
meets who resonates with Man X registers as warmly and familarly as CAT. Anyone else is
CHT, anomalous, a mistake--depending on his context.
E.M. Forster beseeched his readers, "only connect." "A
General Theory of Love" holds that in matters of the heart one has no other choice;
"No individual can think his way around his own attractors, since they are embedded
in the structure of thought." That is why, when Lady X hooks up with someone blithe
and cheery who has straight teeth and prefers bossa nova to blues, cheese steak to
nindaloo, she generally finds she can't make her heart take note. The doctors explain that
"a relationship that strays from one's prototype is limbically equivalent to
isolation" and add; "Most people will choose misery with a partner their limbic
brain recognizes over the stagnant pleasure of a 'nice' relationship with someone their
attachment mechanisms cannot detect." But there is still hope; the heart cannot be
reasoned with, but it can be tricked, at least sometimes. Once Lady X tires of rejecting
sincere suitors in favor of ne'er-do-wells at dive bars, she can retune her limbic
resonance through prolonged contact with a caring, wise, responsive person who, over time,
can implant a healthy neural network in her neocortex that will eventually light up her
limbically challenged heart. Lewis, Amini and Lannon write: "One mind revises
another; one heart changes its partner. This astounding legacy of our combined status as
mammals and neural beings is limbic revision; the power to remodel the emotional parts of
people we love." Where oh where can the limbically lovelorn go to get revised? Try
the Yellow Pages, under "Psychiatrists." And don't forget to take your Prozac
Juvenile Drug Court Mixes Caring, Coercion
Ruth Teichroeb, Seattle Post-Intellingencer- 2/27/2000
Blinking with disbelief, the lanky teenager demands to know why he's being sent to the
King County Juvenile Detention Center for the weekend. "Whaddid I do?" the
16-year-old asks defiantly during his weekly check-in at the county's new juvenile drug
court. Superior Court Judge Laura Inveen gently reminds him that he missed drug treatment
the previous week and tested positive for drugs. In desperation, the boy's mother tells
the judge she is convinced her son is using marijuana again. "Where's the
evidence?" the youth mumbles, shaking his head in disgust. But Inveen doesn't relent,
ordering him into detention until an electronic anklet is available for him to wear upon
release. When the teen is searched after the hearing, detention staff find marijuana in
his pocket.
The boy is one of 25 teenagers who appear before Inveen every Thursday
in the 4-month-old drug court. Up to 50 young offenders will be enrolled later this year.
The two-year, $507,000 pilot project offers a combination of treatment, scrutiny and
support -- an approach that has shown promising results nationwide in helping teenagers
kick drug and alcohol addictions. The court is an experiment in "therapeutic
jurisprudence," casting the judge in the role of coach, counselor and disciplinarian.
"I'm very proud of this program and the kids who are part of it," says Inveen,
sounding like the concerned parent of a very large brood. "We see them when they're
doing well and when they're not."
Juvenile drug courts have popped up across the country in recent years,
with 72 programs now underway in 41 states. King County's pilot project is Washington's
third, with smaller juvenile drug courts already operating in Clallam and Kitsap counties.
The Seattle court is funded by a $380,000 federal Justice Department grant and $126,715 in
county funds. What motivates teens to enroll in the demanding yearlong program is the
promise that their criminal charges will be dropped if they successfully complete
treatment.
"I'm fortunate they're giving me another chance," says
Kendra, 17, who is nine months' pregnant. "They have no reason to take my baby away
now." A cocaine addict since age 10, Kendra was referred to drug court last October
after being arrested on car theft and assault charges. She was sent to a 26-day inpatient
drug-treatment program and is now attending counseling. "I honestly don't think I
could have done it without them," says Kendra, who is living with her boyfriend's
parents until he gets out of jail. "I've never gone this long being clean in seven
years." Kendra is one of just three girls in the program so far. The other two are on
the run, but court officials are optimistic they will return.
All of the youths referred to the court have been either charged with a
drug or alcohol offense, or they are accused of committing property crimes while under the
influence of drugs or alcohol. Juveniles charged with violent or sex-related offenses are
excluded. Participating teenagers must attend weekly court hearings, complete
court-ordered treatment, attend school, participate in individual, group and family
counseling, and undergo random urine tests. After the first three months, youths who make
progress can check in less frequently. Failure to comply with any part of the program can
result in penalties ranging from having to repeat an earlier phase of treatment, to
spending a day on a work crew, or being jailed for a few days in the detention center. So
far, one teenager has been removed from the program because he needed intensive inpatient
mental health treatment. None of the youths have flunked. Parents are also expected
to participate in the weekly check-ins to report on their children's progress.
"This was the best thing that could have happened to my son,"
says Eileen, who had taken time off work to attend court with her 17-year-old son,
Michael. "It was the leverage I needed to get control of the situation." She
traces Michael's problems back to the death of his stepfather four years ago, and a lack
of involvement by her son's biological father. Last summer, her son was charged with
marijuana possession and car theft. Michael is less enthusiastic than his mother about
drug court, chafing at the time commitment. "Earlier, I would have said I hated it,
but I really like the support they show," he says while waiting for the court
hearing. When he appears before Inveen, Michael is asked to explain a black eye he
suffered when he was robbed at a bus stop the previous week. Then he jokes that he
got everything he wanted for Christmas, "except a car." Inveen praises Michael's
progress and presents him with a belated Christmas gift: a fuzzy, brown teddy bear.
"All the other tough guys got their bears last week," Inveen says with a smile.
Michael is an early success story: He has followed through with outpatient treatment, is
attending high school and has failed just one drug test. He is also one of the few
teenagers who has strong support from a parent. Many of the youths show up for their
check-in alone.
Although the program asks parents to agree in writing that they will
attend court, Inveen says they can't force families to participate. "We decided we
didn't want to penalize kids if there weren't parents involved because some of them need
this the most," Inveen says. The judge works with a team of professionals, including
probation counselors, drug counselors and attorneys, who meet weekly to review each
teenager's case. With so many watching eyes, some teens have figured out that it's better
to confess their slip-ups than try to cover their tracks. "I had a relapse," one
boy tells Inveen. "I learned how easy it was to take 70 days (of sobriety) and
flush it down the toilet." Instead of chastising the teenager, Inveen focuses on the
positive steps he took in getting help from his outpatient counselor. "What to me is
impressive is that you didn't let it be your downfall," Inveen says.
Others are less forthcoming. One slight, red-haired boy, who looks 10
but is actually 14, tells Inveen that he has had a wonderful week skateboarding with his
father. Barely containing his frustration, dad has a different story: his son has stayed
out all night more than once, hasn't answered pages and has returned home with dilated
pupils. Inveen orders the boy to be under his father's supervision at all times,
with the threat of being held in detention if he fails to comply. Unlike their adult
counterparts, juvenile drug courts include families and educators in developing treatment
plans. Teenagers are less likely than adults to recognize their actions as wrong, and
often fear punishment less than adults. That means treatment must help juveniles
understand why drug use is risky and assess what they have to lose.
It's too early to tell whether the program will make a difference in
young offenders' lives over the long haul. But other states have reported
encouraging signs since the first juvenile drug courts were launched about four years ago.
More than 75 percent of the 2,693 youth who have participated nationwide have graduated,
according to a U.S. Justice Department report issued last July. Six months after
graduation, 23 percent of youth remained drug-free -- a success rate which, while low, is
better than many other juvenile offender programs have achieved. The 2-year-old Clallam
County juvenile drug court has worked with 79 teenagers. About 17 have graduated so far
from the year-long program, while 28 are still enrolled. Another 34 youths have dropped
out or been asked to leave. "It's tough working with juveniles," says Preston
Kayes, coordinator of the Clallam program. "We've been very pleased with the results
so far." With the right mix of treatment, caring and coercion, Inveen is confident
many teenagers can be nudged onto a healthier path. As the court winds down for another
week, the judge asks a community drug counselor to help convince a girl who has run away
from home to return to court. "We don't want to lose her," Inveen says. |